2 Kings 15:13

SHALLUM; THE SON OF A NOBODY; REIGNED FOR A MONTH

"Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah king of Judah; and he reigned the space of a month in Samaria. And Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, and came to Samaria, and smote Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria, and slew him, and reigned in his stead. Now the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the borders thereof, from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up."

"Menahem ... went up from Tirzah" (2 Kings 15:14). Tirzah once served as a capital of the Northern Kingdom during the reign of Jeroboam I (1 Kings 14:17). From Josephus, it appears that Menahem was commander of the army; and he took advantage of his power to destroy Shallum. Menahem was a brutal, vicious and unprincipled scoundrel who perpetrated an atrocious outrage upon the women of Tiphsah.

In the title we have given this section, Shallum is called "the son of a nobody," a title given to him, "In the Assyrian inscriptions, which means that he was a usurper."[9]

"There is every indication that at this time Israel had almost totally collapsed as a nation. Four kings occupied the throne and two were murdered during the years 753-752 B.C. Jeroboam died, Zechariah and Shallum were both murdered, and during the alleged reign of Menahem, Pekah was also a rival claimant of the throne."[10]